ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Nov 21, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne has welcomed the breakthrough agreement reached at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt over the last weekend to provide “loss and damage” funding for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters.
“This outcome moves us forward,” said Simon Stiell, the Grenada-born UN Climate Change Executive Secretary.
“We have determined a way forward on a decades-long conversation on funding for loss and damage – deliberating over how we address the impacts on communities whose lives and livelihoods have been ruined by the very worst impacts of climate change.”
Browne said his country, as well as the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which he chaired, were involved in the negotiations in Egypt and had even addressed one of the negotiating meetings.
“I had asked them to look at the issue of loss and damage objectively. Look at it from the standpoint of justice…small island states require climate justice.
“I also said to them the idea that no money is available to cover loss and damage that is not so, and that has been one of the issues that John Kerry (The US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate) has promoted for the last couple of years.”.
Set against a difficult geopolitical backdrop, COP27 resulted in countries delivering a package of decisions that reaffirmed their commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The package also strengthened action by countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change, as well as boosting the support of finance, technology, and capacity building needed by developing countries.
Creating a specific fund for loss and damage marked an important point of progress, with the issue added to the official agenda and adopted for the first time at COP27.
Governments took the ground-breaking decision to establish new funding arrangements, as well as a dedicated fund, to assist developing countries in responding to loss and damage. Governments also agreed to establish a ‘transitional committee to make recommendations on how to operationalize both the new funding arrangements and the fund at COP28 next year. The first meeting of the transitional committee is expected to take place before the end of March 2023.
Parties also agreed on the institutional arrangements to operationalize the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage to catalyze technical assistance to developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
Browne said countries like China, India, and the United States should be at the forefront of funding the initiative.
“Because currently, China and India are among the largest polluters currently, but at the same time, we said we look, there must be some equity in the system. We have to look at the level of development…and so we have taken the position that we must have some form of different special treatment in terms of the assessment, how much you will have to pay into the fund.
‘Not only that, we should never let countries like the United States off the hook for their historical emissions. Over 150 years, they have been virtually treating the skies like a dump, dumping fossil fuel emissions into the earth’s atmosphere (and) they are the ones who would have created the mess”.
Browne said that even though China and India are among the largest emitters ‘ the reality is that the damage that was done over the last 150 years by the United States, the UK, and …the European countries that are where the fundamental problem lies.
“So they have to carry the majority of the burden,” Browne said.
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